Adgitize

Learning to Market My Novels

I listen to a lot of podcasts about writing, and I belong to several Facebook Writer's Groups. Through these services, I have heard of Indie publishers marketing their books through Book Funnel. Despite hearing this several times, I never acted on it to benefit my marketing efforts.

This week the spark of an idea exploded into a full fire and I jumped into utilizing Book Funnel Sales Promos. Have you ever heard of marketing through this service? I have seen a lot of talk on Facebook writing groups about indie authors doing newsletter swaps through Book Funnel, but I never realized there was this other service called Sales Promos.

What are Book Funnel Sales Promos?

My Manuscript isn't Perfect - Yet

I continually look for ways to improve my editing. Editing is the writing task I enjoy least. The first book I wrote, I edited it using ProWritingAid (PWA). It was a good tool in 2018, but it is even more powerful and accurate in 2022. After the PWA edit, I gave the book to some beta readers, who told me that I had to make major changes to the manuscript. I had too many characters that didn't add any value in the manuscript. All the beta readers told me to re-write without those non-essential characters.

I followed their instructions and whacked those characters. Then I ran the manuscript through PWA again and decided I was done. I didn't think I had money to pay an editor at the time, and felt that PWA was just as good as an editor. I was wrong.

I love to watch College Football

Why? Because it makes my heart POUND. Yeah, I watch college football because it fills me with powerful emotions.

Maybe our ancestors would go out and try to take down a saber-tooth tiger, and that would be enough emotion for a week. But in our twenty-first century lives, we don't have that adrenaline rush like our fore-fathers. We watch TV and read books to fill up our emotional reservoir. Are you including emotion in your stories? Do your novels make your readers' hearts' pound?

When you watch a football game, you're probably already cheering for one team. If you like the five or six teams that always win, there may be a few blow out games during the season.

What if your team is the underdog?

It's late in the evening, when I should be writing, instead, I'm watching TV. More specifically, I'm watching America Ninja Warrior. An amazing name for a show that has neither ninjas or warriors. If you've never watched the show, it's based on six to ten obstacles that a participant must master to win or go on to the next round of the competition. I enjoy it, because no matter what you did last week, last year or how hard you train, when the starting gong sounds your chance for success hinges on what you're doing at the moment. Women compete right alongside and against men and perform just as well.

How does this have anything to do with writing? Relax, I'll make the connection momentarily. This last season of America Ninja Warrior, aired the summer of 2021, showed an amazing competition between veteran athletes and rookie participants still in High School. Did you read that right? Yes. Veteran athletes with five years or more experience in this competition competing against fifteen and sixteen-year-olds.

Can you imagine Tom Brady playing against athletes that competed at the high school level the previous season?